I left for Nepal on October 19 and arrived on October 20.  I spend a couple days in Kathmandu at the Yak and Yeti Hotel before flying down to Tiger Tops Lodge in the Chitwan National Park.  Upon arrival I went immediately on a photo safari on the back of an elephant.  There are plenty of monkeys, spotted deer and Rhinoceros in the park.  There are many other animals and I was hoping to see a tiger but did not.  The first night I stayed in the lodge.  In the morning I went on another photo safari by elephant.  Then I took a trek up and across a ridge giving me views of the wide open plains.  After lunch we bathed the Elephants in the river which turned out to be the highlight of my time in the Chitwan.  Then I was taken to the tented camp up on the ridge where I grabbed a beer, sat on the porch and watched the Rhino feeding.  The Himalaya would have served as a backdrop if the skies were clear, but fortune was not with me in the Chitwan; it was waiting to smile upon me somewhere else in my adventure where majesty turns to magic.

As the group left the porch for dinner, a young girl sliding her hand on the rail was stung by a white scorpion.  The sting of a white scorpion is non-poisonous but leads to 24 hours of pain.  We were all much more careful after this.

In the morning in a jeep safari we saw tiger tracks and tiger marks on a tree but no tiger.  I did get some great pictures of a tiger beetle, I know you’re excited to hear that.  I had a relaxing river safari on a foggy river where we saw some crocodile. 

After lunch I went to the Tiger Tops private grass runway airport for my flight back to Kathmandu.